I have had good luck w/ some of the west coast mirrors. YMMV.
Others have reported good results with UK mirrors.

Mmm, interesting... Ah, I forgot, there is a spanish mirror at
"rediris" somewhere, but it is not listed. I have to remember to seek
it out next time.

I use a similar trick to Carlos and
a kernel update which takes us 2 to 3 hours is no big deal,
when done in pieces.

Right.

However, I don't know why YOU doesn't do that automatically on its own.
Previously, SuSE 8.1, if interrupted, started to download every patch,
even if already downloaded and only a few were missing. SuSE 8.2 do not
download again the files already downloaded - but it restarts half
downloaded files. A nuisance... but why? I'm sure there must be a
reason.

I do: rpm -v --checksig {name of package}.rpm
to verify that I got it all.

Ah, but I think YOU does it for me, there should be no need to bother -
because after I download it in full (by pieces) I pass the files over
to YOU.